How To: Make Leaderheads! Ekmek's Guide

[Ekmek]

It has to be a missing/unassigned polygon. I did some quick messing around and found that if you add a boneless nif to a regular nif and don't assign it you will get this error. So its somewhere with Mehmed's suit. when you select each part on the suit hide it until nothing highlights when you are selecting bones and there is just a piece or one polygon out there. Chances are it some attached part of the collar or the lemow or shoulder pieces you were hiding.

WORSE case just highlight the entire suit and assign it to the torso and then unselect all an dthen highlight each bone (arm, bicep, shoulders) and unassign them from the torso. that would cover all the bases and in game you'll see if it distorts something and go back an reassign the distorted piece.

feel free to post the blend, oh and welcome to LH making!

 

[IgorS]

feel free to post the blend, oh and welcome to LH making!

Thanks, I don't know how long I'll be staying in LH making. Depends on my success. I guess the only way for me to make a really good LH is with the help of others. I guess if I'll succeed I may need some help in making the leader I made look better. But first lets see what I can do. I already know I want to make three leaders, but so far I haven't made even one. I hope with your help I can finally create something.

 

[Ekmek]

the first few leaderheads tend to be basic, look how many times i updated Bolivar. It does take practice and hopefully after the three you make you help out on the requests

 

[IgorS]

the first few leaderheads tend to be basic, look how many times i updated Bolivar. It does take practice and hopefully after the three you make you help out on the requests

Well, I'm not sure yet, but if there will be interesting requests I might make them. I thought for starters I'll do some stuff that might interest you- I'm planning to try and adjust some things in your leaderheads, I hope you'll like them if I'll succeed.
Anyway, i have good news about my problem. It is solved. Here's how: when I attached the arms to the bones I clicked "select" and it showed me some parts that were left from Kublai and were still attached to the forearm. I think this was the problem. I attached the new sleeves together with the old parts and the LH works!!!
I'll have a preview soon, but first I want to make my second LH- the thing is I made them for two new civs (with UUs and UBs and everything a civ needs) and once the two leaderheads are done I'll upload everything I made.

Now, I'm ready for some advanced stuff:
1. Maybe I missed something, but how do I create my own .kfm files? It is especially important for the backgroudnds, so I could adjust them.
2. How do I change a leader's animations?

Thanks for your help.

 

[Ekmek]

Awesome! Congrats on solving it.

I never created a new kfm. But I have renamed them just to give the leaderhead the uniqueness of it. Since you are using Kubulai I think you need to use Kublais animations because he is a LH that doesn't play with other animations according to the index refar and I made.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=269639

If you really want to take a try at modifying animations see Coyote's tut but I havent tried it yet: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=271331

As for BG. You can use any Bg with any LH just copy the dds, nif, kf, and kfm file that relate to the BG and set the xml up for it. You may have to adjust the camera though (I have that in my guide)

Congrats! Might as well start your own LH gallery

 

[Milford Cubicle]

Hooray! i got my first leaderhead playable a couple of days ago, loks pretty good except the background seems to be a little off, never mind. I would rather release a few leaderheads in a pack. My second one however wasn't quite as successful however as now all i see in the game are a set of teeth where my guy should be

 

[IgorS]

Awesome! Congrats on solving it.

I never created a new kfm. But I have renamed them just to give the leaderhead the uniqueness of it.

That's why I asked- I tried, but for some reason it didn't work... I'll try again.

Since you are using Kubulai I think you need to use Kublais animations because he is a LH that doesn't play with other animations according to the index refar and I made.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=269639

Thanks for the link, I've been looking for it, but couldn't find it!

As for BG. You can use any Bg with any LH just copy the dds, nif, kf, and kfm file that relate to the BG and set the xml up for it. You may have to adjust the camera though (I have that in my guide)

I already know how to change bgs- I've done that many times before, but I never added a background for a new leader (because I never made my own leaders). I'll try what you said.

Congrats! Might as well start your own LH gallery

I won't make an entire gallery for one leader... When I'll have two, however...

 

[IgorS]

Ekmek, I have a problem with the background. It seems the Kublai Khan LH is somehow attached to his background or something. Whenever I change the bg it has a red stripe at the top- because it expects the sky animation which is above the bg. I could only succeed in stopping the animation (by deleting the background animation .kf file). Still, it looks for the sky animation, and since it cannot find it there is a red stipe at the top. I tried using other leaders' background .kfm files, but it doesn't work- the red stripe is always there. I think it may have something to do with the Kublai LH. The only two backgrounds that work with my new LH are Kublai's and Qin's. However, when I paste over them- the red stripe appears too. Since I don't want to use these two bgs I can't get this LH finished. Do you understand my problem or do you need a screenshot or my LH files?

 

[Ekmek]

Hooray! i got my first leaderhead playable a couple of days ago, loks pretty good except the background seems to be a little off, never mind. I would rather release a few leaderheads in a pack. My second one however wasn't quite as successful however as now all i see in the game are a set of teeth where my guy should be

Congrats on your LH success!

Milford I'm adding this to an update of my guide but this is what Coyote says to do:
The_Coyote: "[In Nifskope] remove the SkinPartition from the NiSkinInstance of the NiTriStrips (if you export as Strips - like needed by lh - you don´t need a SkinPartition [and you can´t have one]) "

so click on the body mesh and find NiSkinInstances and remoe the skinpartion (not remove branch just remove by right click)

as for your BG being off see Igors issue below:

Ekmek, I have a problem with the background. It seems the Kublai Khan LH is somehow attached to his background or something. Whenever I change the bg it has a red stripe at the top- because it expects the sky animation which is above the bg. I could only succeed in stopping the animation (by deleting the background animation .kf file). Still, it looks for the sky animation, and since it cannot find it there is a red stipe at the top. I tried using other leaders' background .kfm files, but it doesn't work- the red stripe is always there. I think it may have something to do with the Kublai LH. The only two backgrounds that work with my new LH are Kublai's and Qin's. However, when I paste over them- the red stripe appears too. Since I don't want to use these two bgs I can't get this LH finished. Do you understand my problem or do you need a screenshot or my LH files?

he's not attached to the bg but its his camera. there are a few ways to fix this -
1) fix the camera view described in my guide or
2) open the bg.nif and click on the background mesh and then in the details block at the bottom find scale it usually set to 1.000 if you increase it to 1.1 or 1.25 it will enlarge the bg mesh and get rid of the redstripe.
3) if you want to get more precise mess with translation to get it exactly lined up.
like the LH nif each time you sabe the bg.nif reload the LH in civilopedia by clicking another LH then back to your leader.

I usually do option 2

I'll add this to my troubleshooting section too. i recommend checking it with the in-game test described in my guide.

great to see after over 100 dls of my guide I've gotten 2 new LH makers (4 if vortilex and huyana capac get it). i need to up that return from 2%!

 

[IgorS]

2) open the bg.nif and click on the background mesh and then in the details block at the bottom find scale it usually set to 1.000 if you increase it to 1.1 or 1.25 it will enlarge the bg mesh and get rid of the redstripe.

I played with the scaling in Nifscope before, but I had no idea this was the solution to my problem! Thanks, I now have one LH and I'm going to make a second one now!
By the way, are there any other bgs that might give me problems?

 

[Ekmek]

no, its not usually problems its just a matter of mixing bgs with lhs. its a quick fix so I never really worried about bgs. often i have stuck to one or two bgs as a standard bg. but like with the alex LH i took genghis to get the sun effect.

 

[IgorS]

no, its not usually problems its just a matter of mixing bgs with lhs. its a quick fix so I never really worried about bgs. often i have stuck to one or two bgs as a standard bg. but like with the alex LH i took genghis to get the sun effect.

Well, I never had problems playing with bgs because I've never changed bgs of Firaxis LHs. The only exception is van der Donck, but I guess Colonization doesn't have this problem, so everything worked fine for me.

And here's another question (sorry): I'm working on my second LH. I tried to base him on Wang Kon, but once you remove his hat you see a huge hole and I don't know how to fill it... Anyway, I decided to base the LH on Alex instead, but I want to make his eyes look Far-Eastern. What is the best way to make his eyes smaller?

 

[Ekmek]

And here's another question (sorry): I'm working on my second LH. I tried to base him on Wang Kon, but once you remove his hat you see a huge hole and I don't know how to fill it...

that involves take hair or oart of a head of another lh and puting it on there. similar to a suit but it involves sizing it right and merging the dots. capo has done it and I consider it an "advanced" method. I'll eventually do an advanced guide but basically it dot mode you click one dot and then shift click another dot and press alt+m for merge and it makes the two dots into one and the scalp is now part of the head/ but the hard part is fixing the uvs. You should get a fw lhs under your belt before trying this, i think.

Anyway, I decided to base the LH on Alex instead, but I want to make his eyes look Far-Eastern. What is the best way to make his eyes smaller?

like in my guide on transforming the nose size. but you can select the eyelid bones and then reduce the height and stretch the width. should be easy to do.

 

[IgorS]

like in my guide on transforming the nose size. but you can select the eyelid bones and then reduce the height and stretch the width. should be easy to do.

I'll try what you said with the bones. It is annoying that when it comes to the eyes you need to put the lh in the game to actually see what you have done.

 

[Mallin]

Does this tutorial just explain how to reskin leaderheads? If it does then are there any tutorials on how to make a leader head from scratch like units and buildings on the 3d max program?

 

[Ekmek]

I guess you aren't familiar with my work. Check out the tutorial. This tutorial actually doesn't cover skinning texturing at all. Its a step by step process that takes you through the free Blender 3D modelling program (kind of like 3dsmax which i dont have), then place it into a nif, and then add it via xml and see it in game.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Hello, Ekmek!

First of all I wanted to thank you on the tutorial here; I never realized that playing around with leaderheads wasn't so mysterious and difficult a task as it seemed. I've always had ideas around for new LHs, but never figured out how to implement them.

Anyhow, I am encountering a problem with my LH. I've pretty much completed your entire tutorial, and almost everything is fine, except two small issues when viewing the LH in-game. From what I figure out, these issues weren't covered in the troubleshooting section of your tutorial.

Firstly, the eyes are missing. Secondly, the texture doesn't show up at all for the body; it's not even pink, it's entirely pitch black. if you don't understand what I'm talking about, I've attached a picture, just for reference.

Do you have any ideas to what could be wrong? Did I miss a step, perhaps?

Thanks for the help in advance.

PS If it helps, I was trying to put Ashoka in Mehmed's coat.

 

[Ekmek]

for the eyes it possible that you deleted them from the original nif but didnt copy them over from your blender created nif.


the black suit problem may be an issue I haven't seen in a long time. it happened to me when I mixed shader LHs with nonshader ones. I vaguely remember how to fix it but if you post your last blend and the nif file you used for your in-game shot I should be able to fix it quickly.

I'm happy you are getting in the LH biz! Thanks for the feedback it will help me to improve my guide. great job so far!

 

[cybrxkhan]

Thanks for the help! As for the eye problem, could I remedy this simply by recopying the eye from the original nif into my blend? And would I fix this in nifskope or in blender?

Well, and as for the black suit, funnily enough I think it looks pretty spiffy in a way - kind of makes him look like some inquisitor or something. The nifskope part was surprisingly the hardest for me to understand, so I think there could be some problems with it; plus my computer crashed while I was in the middle that, so I think I may have forgotten or added something or who knows what.

Anyhow, I've attached my last blend and the nif as you instructed. (it's in a zip folder)

Thank you so much for your patience and willingness to help!

 

[Mallin]

I guess you aren't familiar with my work. Check out the tutorial. This tutorial actually doesn't cover skinning texturing at all. Its a step by step process that takes you through the free Blender 3D modelling program (kind of like 3dsmax which i dont have), then place it into a nif, and then add it via xml and see it in game.

Thanks for the clarification , I'll be sure to check out your tutorial.